Hector Carrasco Rumors

According to Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune, the Mets have interest in White Sox right fielder Jermaine Dye. The Mets had also been monitoring Mark Buehrle, but he’s officially off the market now. Gonzales seems to indicate that the Buehrle extension will lessen the Mets’ interest in Dye. Dye’s been awful this season, perhaps limited by his strained quad.

Gonzales’s source also mentioned that Omar Minaya is hunting for bullpen help. A few days ago David Lennon noted that the Mets have an eye on Hector Carrasco. The 37 year-old should be traded somewhere by Friday.

As far as more effective available relievers, Peter Gammons rattled off the usual names in a recent blog entry (Akinori Otsuka, Eric Gagne, Octavio Dotel, Salomon Torres, Brad Lidge, Dan Wheeler, and Chad Qualls). Matthew Cerrone of MetsBlog considers Otsuka the perfect fit, though the price could be Lastings Milledge. Another name in Gammons’ list, Brad Lidge, may be unavailable based on Ken Rosenthal’s info. Gammons mentioned one intriguing pitcher that’d certainly be worthy of surrendering Milledge: Zack Greinke. Seems crazy that the Royals would give him up, but he’ll be a hot commodity if they do shop him.

The Angels snagged Hector Carrasco, a 37 year-old reliever, for $6.1MM over two years. Considering that Carrasco was waiver bait a couple of years ago, he did an excellent job capitalizing on his freakish 2.04 ERA in 2005.

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Carrasco had the lowest batting average with balls in play among any pitcher with at least 80 innings in 2005 – .236. Given that the typical BABIP is more like .300, Carrasco’s luck is likely to run out. Expect an ERA closer to 4 in ’06.

The Carrasco acquisition adds fuel to the fire that the Halos could deal a top reliever like Scot Shields or Brendan Donnelly.